escritoireazul

Here's where I've continued this discussion: labels and sex and gen versus shipper part two.

February 20, 1:47 p.m.

I've been thinking about femslash and male slash and het, and stories with sex in each of them. I've actually been thinking about this a lot, in both my fanfic and non-fanfic writing, but the story I posted last night (lineage and the Slayer line) really brought some of it to head because it was written for a femslash community (

femslash_minis) as a femslash request, and yet there's only a little kiss (and a little shared space and perception, but still). Could it be a gen Faith story? I think so, yes, despite the kiss and Faith's attraction to Kendra.

Originally I had intended to make it more sexual, but it didn't fit into this piece, this chunk of dream-memory. (I've been inspired today, while thinking these thoughts, to start a sequel, a later dream, maybe during the season four finale. I think the first Slayer being in their dreams would have maybe shaken up the Slayer-self, and Faith might have dreamed, too, but the first Slayer was busy, so who else would Faith dream about?)

But when you (generic) write femslash and don't include the sex (detailed or not), does it come across like you're uncomfortable with the female/female sex? Does it do this in male slash? What about het? Where do the lines cross between gen and shippy, character sketch and slash story?

Oh crap, work to do. I just wanted to throw this out before I forgot to talk about it, and I'm interested in your thoughts.

Edited to Add (February 20, 3:10 p.m.):

This is a comment I left below, in response to something

docmichelle said, which has helped me better understand the questions I want to ask (sort of).

You know, I think I have two different questions going on here, and you're helping me split them. Thank you.

One question is, where does the line between gen and shipper split? The story in question is a Slayer dream Faith has when she's Called, in which Kendra passes her power on, and the closest thing to a shippy moment is the way their bodies combine in the dreamscape. Mostly it is a gen story, a Faith character study, and I feel bad about it, because it was for a femslash challenge, and it just didn't work out the way I wanted, but with only a week to write it, I didn't have time to start a second story which might have worked better. And this really isn't a question, is it? Faith is a little attracted to the combination, and to Kendra herself, but that's it. Should it be labeled femslash? Would it be labeled if Kendra was replaced with, say, Xander? (Ignore the impossibilities of that.)

The second is how sex fits into the story, and really doesn't have anything at all to do with this, it's much more a question about the genre my original writing is in, and the precedent set by other writers, and probably belongs in the other journal completely. Hmmm.